It’s a year ago yesterday since we flew to Australia. It certainly doesn’t feel like it, but it’s been a bizarre week of milestones remembering when the WHO declared the pandemic, when we started preparing home learning, when we rushed to the airport only to fail and turn around again, and finally getting a flight back. It’s crazy to think how lucky we were to manage to get back to Australia and for me to see everybody in the time I had, as it certainly doesn’t look like we’ll be able to get back anytime soon.

We’ve had a bit of a calmer week this week, although I did work quite long days early in the week. As a school, we’ve been figuring out how we can make sure that our disadvantaged students are receiving the same access to education as everyone else and to make sure we’re catering to our weakest students. It made for an intense but productive staff meeting and was quite affirming in year 6, where we were able to confidently say that we’re providing a lot of support for all the children who need it.

We continued watching It’s A Sin early in the week and finished that on Tuesday. It really opened my eyes to the AIDS epidemic in the 90s – I hadn’t really realised how naïve people were about the disease in the early years, particularly in the UK. We also skyped Jess on Tuesday night and had a great catch up and rant about various frustrations for each of us.

Wednesday was St Patrick’s Day so after my usual ‘Happier Hour’ call with my book club friends, Peter and I had a fun little drink that we’d ordered from The Cauldron, the Harry Potter bar in Dalston that I went to with Mum and Dad. They’d sent little glasses with tiny bottles of liqueur – grand marnier, a vegan white chocolate liqueur and dyed-green whiskey – instructions on how to create the shots, and some chocolate coins. It was a bit of fun to celebrate if we couldn’t be in the pub!

Thursday night was of course movie night with Rachel and Stu, and we enjoyed some takeaway sushi with X-Men 3, which was really quite bad but very funny with a riff track.

The week was definitely a very long one so it was a relief to get to Friday and we celebrated with a couple of beers and some light-hearted TV (the finale of Drag Race UK and then The Good Place) on Friday night. I had received a fun order of some more wool and fabric on Thursday, so I started knitting the tension sample for a new project while we watched.

I had a very productive day on Saturday, with a run, some yoga, a delicious lunch, some cleaning, a birthday phone call with Peter’s uncle Hugh and watching Aladdin in the evening.

We spoke to Mum and Dad on Skype this morning, and are planning a pretty quiet day today, with book club this afternoon and then an escape game.